What geographic regions or states account for the most ICE human trafficking arrests in recent years?

1. What the federal tallies actually show — national scale, not state ranking

Congressional Research Service data summarized on Congress.gov report ICE/HSI investigated 1,282 human‑trafficking cases and arrested 2,610 individuals in FY2023, establishing that ICE/HSI is a major federal investigator of human trafficking — but that source provides national counts rather than a clean, recent state‑by‑state ranking of trafficking arrests ^[1].

2. DHS/ICE press releases point to several states, but are episodic and selective

DHS and ICE newsroom items in 2025 detail major trafficking or trafficking‑adjacent operations in specific states: a large Florida operation (Operation Dirtbag) that arrested more than 230 criminal aliens including ~150 sexual predators ^[2]; a Nebraska operation that rescued 27 victims and charged five for labor and sex trafficking tied to motels in the Omaha metro area ^[5]; an Atlanta (Georgia) HSI release on a labor trafficking case leading to arrests and rescues ^[8]; and an ICE confirmation of 24 arrests in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin tied to a transnational trafficking and drug ring ^[6]. These announcements signal active investigations and arrests in Florida, Nebraska, Georgia, Wisconsin and others, but they reflect individual operations rather than systematic state totals ^{[2] [5] [8] [6]}.

3. High‑volume ICE enforcement states are not identical to trafficking arrest hotspots

Independent reporting and analyses of ICE enforcement overall (not limited to trafficking) show high arrest volumes in Texas, Florida and California during 2025 — for example, Newsweek citing Deportation Data Project finds Texas, Florida and California accounted for over 41% of ICE arrests between Jan 20 and June 26, 2025 ^[9]. Local reporting also notes large interior enforcement spikes in Houston and across Texas ^{[10] [11]}. However, ICE’s broad arrest volume is driven largely by immigration and criminal‑conviction enforcement categories, and the provided sources do not equate total ICE arrests by state with the subset that are trafficking arrests ^{[9] [10]}. Therefore high overall ICE activity in a state does not automatically mean it accounts for the most trafficking arrests — available sources do not provide a direct state‑level breakdown of trafficking arrests to prove that link (not found in current reporting).

4. Academic and NGO efforts map state variations in ICE arrests, but not trafficking specifically

Researchers at UCLA and trackers such as the Deportation Data Project and TRAC report state variations in ICE arrest rates and detention usage ^{[12] [13]}. Those studies help identify where ICE is most active relative to noncitizen populations — showing Texas and other states with substantial enforcement — but the UCLA brief and TRAC materials in the search set focus on overall ICE arrest rates and detention counts, not narrowly on human‑trafficking arrest counts per state ^{[12] [13]}. Thus they provide context but cannot answer the original query directly with a trafficking‑specific state ranking (not found in current reporting).

5. Media and watchdog reporting raise methodological caveats

Investigations by outlets such as CNN and The Guardian challenge interpreting ICE’s public tallies: CNN notes that a large share of people booked into ICE custody in FY2025 had no serious criminal convictions beyond immigration or traffic offenses, suggesting enforcement strategies and criteria have changed and complicating comparisons across offense types and time ^[14]. The Guardian’s continuing data tracking archives ICE detention and arrest releases but does not present a trafficking‑only state ranking in the supplied excerpts ^[15]. These discussions underscore that agency press releases emphasize successful operations, but they are selective and shaped by enforcement priorities and political context ^{[14] [15]}.

6. Bottom line and what to request next

The sources show ICE/HSI leads federal trafficking investigations nationally (2,610 arrests in FY2023 per CRS) and that recent high‑profile operations occurred in Florida, Texas, California, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Georgia and Louisiana — but none of the provided materials include a systematic, recent state‑by‑state tally of ICE human‑trafficking arrests for direct comparison ^{[1] [2] [9] [5] [6] [8]}. To produce a definitive list of which states “account for the most ICE human‑trafficking arrests in recent years,” request the ICE/HSI dataset that itemizes trafficking arrests by state and fiscal year (ICE’s public statistics portal or a direct data release), or a trafficking‑specific FOIA/CRS breakdown — current reporting does not contain that specific, comparable state ranking (not found in current reporting).